Once more, from hall and cottage home, we meet
    About the well-spread hospitable board;
    Our foreheads are a little deeper scored,
A little slowlier move our aged feet;
But still our hearts are young enough to beat
    With Christmas cheer, and on our heads is poured
    The peace and loving-kindness of the Lord,
Who bade us think of Him the whiles we eat.

Oh, Thou great Saviour, who of old wert known
    In breaking of the bread, be here to-day,
        And if from out the grave some cannot come
To claim our greetings and to give their own,
    Let their loved forms and faces with us stay
        Till all are welcomed to their heavenly home.

(Poems at Home and Abroad, p. 57)

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The above association has set itself in earnest to raise a sufficient guarantee fund to enable it, should it be necessary, to appeal to the decision of a court of law against those who have closed sundry important footpaths in the neighbourhood of Keswick, over which it is believed the public has a right of way.  In all cases the society in the first instance will seek to attain its ends by amicable arrangement.  No legal proceedings will be taken without Counsel’s opinion on the legality of each claim, and without the consent of two-thirds of the members of the society present at a meeting convened to decide the matter.  That the public, for whom the society takes the defence of rights, is interested beyond the mere circle of residents must be plain to all who realise the fact that numbers of tourists and visitors from all parts of the world resort to the Keswick district during the summer, and that these, by the closing of footpaths, find themselves debarred from a source of great enjoyment.  It is earnestly hoped that all desirous of preserving for this district one of its chief attractions will give practical aid to the above association.

(English Lakes Visitor and Keswick Guardian, 6 August 1887, p. 5)

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I will now briefly tell you how Christianity came into this valley.  Probably St. Ninian first taught the people the way of God through his missionaries from Whithorn across the Solway, in the early part of the sixth century.  Then St. Kentigern, flying for his life from his pagan persecutors at Dumbarton in the north, somewhere about the year 553, heard, when he reached Carlisle, that many among the mountains had fallen from the faith and were worshipping strange gods, and coming hither by a way we can trace because of the fact that church dedications bear his name, set up a cross in the clearing of the wood or ‘thwaite,’ from which the whole district composed within the ancient parish of Crosthwaite, takes its name.  Here he stayed many days confirming the men in the faith, and so passed south to become the founder of the great missionary settlement of St. Asaph. (pp. 138-9)

Later in that sixth century, St. Brigha, sister of St. Brandon, who gave her name to Bristol city, gave her name also, as I believe, to the Vicarage Hill in this parish, which is still called Bristowe Hill; for Bristol and Bristowe are similar words.  She left behind a memory of her mission work and her sisters in the Nuns’ Well of Brigham, or the home of Brigha. (p. 139)

After her we know nothing till the next century when on the 17th March in the year 687, we know from that famous old chronicler, Bede, that a holy man of God, named Herbert, who was the friend of Cuthbert, died on the island in Derwentwater, which still bears his name, on the same day as that upon which St. Cuthbert died. (p. 139)

The parish and its church and cure of souls was given by Richard Coeur de Lion, within three months of his death, to the Abbey of St. Mary’s at Fountains, and up to the Reformation it was worked by a body of monks who dwelt at Monks Hall, where now stands the cottage hospital.  In the fourteenth century an interesting band of men called Monks of the Guild of St. Anthony, also dwelt there.  They vowed themselves to poverty and to assist all who needed their help by guiding them across the valleys and over the waths or fords, and by giving them shelter at night.  When in the year 1384, a shrine was set up on St. Herbert’s island in memory of the friendship of St. Cuthbert and St. Herbert, it became part of their duty to ferry pilgrims backwards and forwards to that shrine from St. Nicholas’s landing on the west side and from Friars’ Crag on the east side of the Lake, and their useful services in those old days is perpetuated by the name of the crag. (pp. 139-140)….

Wordsworth came to the valley to sojourn a short time in 1793.  He brought with him his sister, Dorothy the poetess.  They walked hither together afoot to stay at the old farm house of Windy Brow.  While there they rejoiced to find that they could live so cheaply.  Sixpence a day was sufficient for them, their food being chiefly porridge and potatoes.  They proved then, as all their life confessed, that simple living was conducive and compatible with high thinking.  It would be better if there was a little more of both in these days. (pp. 143-144)

In the year 1800 another remarkable man visited Keswick, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  Old Jackson, the chief carrier between Whitehaven and Kendal, hearing that he would like to live here, offered him half of his house, Greta Hall, for fifty pounds a year, as it was too large for himself, and, as that was too much for the poet, said that as he was a scholar he might have it for twenty-five pounds.  This old Jackson was fond of books, knew his Shakespeare well, read history, and had a capital library well stocked with encyclopaedias and dictionaries.  Coleridge was then in his twenty-ninth year and the prime of his life and work.  He was engaged then upon his poem, ‘Christabel’; the ‘Ancient Mariner’ had been finished the year before.  The thought that Wordsworth was at Grasmere attracted him; the promise of good books at Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s decided him, and with the little philosopher, Hartley—the ‘blessed vision happy child!’ of Wordsworth’s verse—he came here with his wife, Southey’s sister-in-law, to live in 1800.  In the old Register at Crosthwaite Church you may see the entries showing that Hartley, Derwent, and their sister Sara Coleridge were christened in our old font on one and the same day in October of 1803. (pp. 144-145)

In that year another poet, Robert Southey, afterwards poet laureate, who had married Coleridge’s wife’s sister, came with his wife and another sister-in-law, Mrs. Lovell, when Southey took upon himself the care of the household.  No words of mine can express to you the growing admiration I feel for that wonderful benevolence of the literary man who for forty years daily went through his literary task to bring bread to his children and to the Coleridges and their friends. (p. 145)

Other people of note came here in those days, including Charles Lamb and his sister Mary in 1802.  In 1811 another poet came to Keswick.  I mean young Shelley, who had run away with his schoolgirl wife, Harriet Westbrooke.  He was nineteen and she only sixteen-and-a-half.  His father would have nothing to do with him.  He had been sent down from Cambridge for publishing an inflammatory tract, and he and his young wife had come to a house at Chestnut Hill belonging to Mr. Gideon Dare.  There is a pathetic story told of how when the Southeys called on Mrs. Shelley, they asked her how she enjoyed being there, and she said she liked the garden, because when they tired of the house Mr. Dare allowed them to run wild round the garden paths. (pp. 145-146)

In 1818 Keats tells us he walked here from Wythburn, and the same day went to Lodore and fell into one of the pools and got wet through up to his waist.  The next day he walked round the lake, went up to Skiddaw, came down, had his dinner and walked to Uldale. (p. 146)

I must tell you that there died on September 7th, 1856, Jonathan Otley, who was the first to discover the stratification and classification of our Cumberland rocks.  Professor Sedgwick, speaking of our rock system in 1831, said that it must never be forgotten that we owed this discovery to his indefatigable energy and industrious observation.  He was a clockmaker and swillmaker, and he it was who made the old clock in the tower at Crosthwaite. (p. 146)

For those of us who believe in a reasonable Christianity, it must not be forgotten that at this time there lived at Keswick Frederick Myers.  This man Myers was a reader and a thinker who believed that the more people who were educated the nobler they became.  He gave popular lectures on great men and also started an excellent library.  The newer German theology introduced by Maurice did much to leaven English theological thought.  Some of you may have read his ‘Catholic Thoughts.’  If much of his way of thinking is current coin of the church now, we cannot forget that he and Maurice were pioneers in Christian philosophy. (p. 147)….

Several people have been here who have described Southey, but the best personal description we have of him is that of John Ruskin, who came here as a little lad of ten and went down to the Friars’ Crag and there saw, in his opinion, one of the four finest views in Europe, a view which, together with one he had on Shap Fells, he never forgot.  The roots of the trees at Friars’ Crag particularly impressed him.  He tells us that it made a difference to him in his views of tree growth for the rest of his life. (p. 148)

But it was on a later visit, when he was twelve years old, that Ruskin went with his friends to Crosthwaite Church and saw Southey and described him thus: ‘His eyes were as black as a coal, and in turning they flashed very much as a coal does in burning.’ (p. 148)

The flash of Southey’s dark eye was remarkable, and his swift change of colour when he was roused to remonstrance has been likened by Carlyle to that of a cobra’s when it opens its hood and sets back its head to strike. (p. 148)

In 1835 another poet laureate, Tennyson, with his friend Fitzgerald, visited Keswick, and while here wrote and re-wrote parts of his poem ‘Morte D’Arthur,’ and I sometimes think that our Bassenthwaite lapping on the crag and washing in the reeds as I see it when I gaze down on the woods of Mirehouse from Skiddaw, inspired some of his lines. (pp. 148-149)

In 1850 Tennyson visited Keswick again, this time with his bride, Miss Emily Selwood, whom, as a cousin of my mother’s, I have known something of and reverenced.  Seeing a carriage one day in the town, he asked to whom it belonged, and learning that it was the Mirehouse carriage, he went up to the lady occupant and asked her about James Spedding in a gruff way and spoke about the Speddings as if he knew them.  She asked him to drive with her to Mirehouse, and it was not until they were within the gates that he told her he was Alfred Tennyson, the friend of James Spedding. (p. 149)

Another guest at Mirehouse was Tom Carlyle, who always spoke of Tom Spedding as the only man who really understood him, and who stayed at Mirehouse in 1818 and again in 1865.  On the latter occasion he came to rest there, completely worn out after completing his work on ‘Frederick the Great.’ (p. 149)

A well-known writer in Blackwood, William Smith, the author of ‘Thorndale,’ dwelt in this valley between the years 1852 and 1864, partly at Portinscale and partly in Keswick.  It is interesting to know that the house he came to, 3 Derwentwater Place, had just been built by the hands of a mason poet, Richardson, of St. John’s-in-the-Vale, who grew up to become the Robert Burns of this neighbourhood.  All who care for racy rhyme and humorous delineation of character to the life in good Cumberland dialect ought to possess themselves of his two volumes of Cumberland talk.  Too delicate in health for the hard work of a waller, he became the dominie of St. John’s-in-the-Vale School.  No man loved that valley better than he, and he lies buried within a hundred yards of the schoolroom in which he taught. (pp. 149-150)

Bothe the Vicarages at Crosthwaite and St. John’s, Keswick, have given birth to writers of considerable fame.  The well-known authoress, Mrs. Lynn-Linton, was born on Vicarage Hill, and those who read ‘Lizzie Lorton,’ ‘Christopher Kirkland,’ and her ‘Lake Country’ know how deeply she cared for this neighbourhood.  Her ashes were deposited in July, 1898, beside her father’s tomb in Crosthwaite Churchyard.  Beside his father’s tomb, in the St. John’s Churchyard, rest the remains of Frederick Myers the poet, who was born in the St. John’s Vicarage.  Too early in life he gave up the art of the poet for his passionate endeavour to pierce the veil and ascertain by physical experiments if the spirits of the departed can commune with those who still walk the earth. (pp. 150-151)

(Chapters at the English Lakes, pp. 126-151)

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 Along the Kent stream let us go, up to the daffodil farm in the Vale; and as we go we shall meet two or three women with huge baskets filled with the “daffies,” and if we ask them what they are for, we shall be told, “They’re for t’ ‘Singin’’ Competition to-morrer, ivvery barn as sings is t’ hev a bunch on ’im for a posy.  Them’s t’ orders, a suppoase.”  (p. 153)

What is the Singing Competition?  It is an annual “Festgesang” to which the choirs of all the country round will come to compete in choral glee, madrigal, part-singing, solo-singing, singing at sight, and musical instrument playing.  It is the Eisteddfod of Westmoreland, of which the presiding genius is Miss Wakefield.  To her and her indefatigable energy is it owed that music is slowly but surely becoming the possession of all the farm-houses and village schools far and near.  To her is due the praise for having brought back the “Fair Handmaid of God, and near allied unto Divinity” into the heart of Westmoreland. (p. 154)

Miss Wakefield can never have dreamt that the movement, which began in a little quartette competition held in connection with a village industrial exhibition at Sedgwick in 1885, would have grown up and become an annual gathering, to which pressmen from our leading journals come to hear and report; an annual meeting of all lovers of music from far and near; a real red-letter day to which the choirs look forward, and for which the singers, young and old, work all through the winter; an annual performance which calls forth original music from our younger composers, witness Mr. Arthur Somervell’s cantata, “The Power of Sound,” Miss Wakefield’s songs, and Mr. Leonard Selby’s glees; a centre for musical education, to which, in the past decade, poor and rich alike owe at once their stimulus, their encouragement, and their new joy in life; an annual prize-gathering at which already, though this is a feature of least account, not less than £400 has been given away, and over which members of our greatest English families have felt proud to preside. (pp. 154-155)

What was the object of the foundress of this inspiring work?  In her own words it “appeared to her that there could be no easier or more enjoyable form of recreation for the dwellers under a climate which made outdoor amusements only possible for about three months in each year; unlike other artistic work, members might join together in music and prove its worth.”  In Miss Wakefield’s mind it was not only that, being under a rain-belt, men and women should have harmony at their own firesides, and sing as birds often do, ‘Safe from all storm in shelter of the wood,’ but it was needful that men and women should meet together for social pleasure.  Music fulfilled its most attractive and beneficent mission when the masses of people enjoyed it as a recreation and a solace.  People enjoyed most what they took part in, and it was because choral music might include any number that its social side was so immensely valuable. (pp. 155-156)….

But the Festival had other aims than these.  Good music must supplant bad if it were ever to become a real power in the land, and if nothing more came of it than that a single village choir added each year to its repertory a glee, a madrigal, part-song, or chorus by some recognized master, or that a single soloist learned a standard song whose music and whose words should both be true, then there would be a lift, not only in musical expression, but in musical selection also. (p. 158)

Besides all this, it was thought that any real latent talent would have a chance of coming to the front; our mute, inglorious Mendelssohns might be known, and, at any rate, it would be slowly but surely recognized that music is a liberal education, a thing to give many hours of many a winter’s day to; that musical singing did not only mean making a noise at the back of the throat, but the use of a most refined vocal instrument that could be trained not only to utter sweet sound, but utter it with clear intonation, clear enunciation, delicate expression, and fervent passion. (pp. 158-159)

Last, but not least, the motto, “Union is Strength,” was on the banner of this great emprise.  Teachers, conductors, singers, or players might learn to lay aside their class distinctions and local jealousies, and join together for the art’s sake, whole and sole.  Scattered villages and isolated village choirs might be able to acquit themselves creditably enough in a glee, a part-song, or chorus, but the crown of their rejoicing would be found in some united performance of a masterpiece, cantata or oratorio, which would give the singers a chance of hearing the music of our great masters. (p. 159)

One thing Miss Wakefield insisted upon, was that this work should begin and end in earnestness.  The annual Festival was not to be looked upon as a mere holiday, but as a contest of strength perfected through long practice.  The music chosen was often of a high and difficult standard, but it was a study and not a play that was intended.  Nor were the performers free to sing by ear.  Sight-reading was a sine qua non.  Why should not the golden days of great Elizabeth return to us?  What was to prevent the Westmoreland farm-house having its quartette party to sing catch or roundelay at night, when work was over and the winter evening was long.  So the rule was made that no choir should enter for any of the Festival Competitions who would not also enter collectively for the contest of reading at sight. (p. 159-160)

The task imposed was no light one, but it has borne fruit.  In 1886 six choirs entered; the next year the radius was extended to villages and towns of less than 6000 people.  In 1896 sixteen choirs competed, the junior choirs when combined numbered 300, and the adult choirs 400, while the whole number of competitors for voice and instrument numbered more than 1000. (p. 160)

In the ten years’ work it is believed that 10,220 singers and players have come under instruction in this small area of twenty-four miles radius, round the country-house of Sedgwick, which has been the centre and focus of this educational effort. (pp. 160-161) 

(Life and Nature at the English Lakes, pp. 146-172)

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